We get it. San Antonio is a major city, and the airport is on the smaller side. We’d like more nonstop flights, too.

We appreciate the effort to land a nonstop flight to Reagan National Airport, a natural connection for Military City, USA.

But the airport has added at least 20 flights over the last 18 months, many of which are nonstop. Nonstop destinations include Toronto, numerous cities in Mexico, Phoenix, Miami and Seattle. By the end of July, the airport plans 43 nonstop routes.

Officials and business leaders often bemoan the need for more nonstop flights, citing it as an obstacle to economic development. But this thinking ignores geography.

San Antonio is close to major hubs in Houston and Dallas. A certain number of flights will always pass through airports in those cities.

Our point is this: The airport is not the source of our economic challenges or an obstacle to business development and recruitment.

As we’ve written before, the airport is a reflection of our challenges, not its source. Significantly, those challenges are an undereducated workforce, a lack of transportation options and a local flagship university that is not graduating nearly enough students.